3M turns accidentally monumental PR into deliberately shady PR

We have all seen the Post-It Note Jaguar which has taken a seat next to Star-Wars-Kid, Leave-Britney-Alone and countless others in our web consciousness. Followers, mash-ups, responses, creative references and lots of online and offline PR have turned the Post-It Note prank into a gigantic (free) attention grabber for its manufacturer 3M.

This twist of the tale might be an old hat to some, but I just noticed these YouTube annotations on a docu video. It claims that 3M (via an agency I assume) inquired about usage rights for the original photo assets. Story goes that 3M basically had the whole thing reshot as the original prankster was asking for too much money.

Now if you counted the value of free media 3M got out of this stunt, including the opportunity to having the originator on board, surely whatever he was asking for would have made sense. This way, 3M looks like the miserly giant who “doesn’t get it” instead of hopping on board of the groundswell and fanning the flames like Stride on Where the Hell is Matt?

The whole story, including details of the “outrageous” sum (<– sarcasm) the photographer asked for, can be found here.

By the way, 3M contacted the photog directly, not via an agency. I can’t imagine any agency being dumb enough to advise taking the route 3M did. You’re spot on in your analysis that embracing the original content creator would have been the smarter viral move.

Thanks Melanie for blowing me out of the water with your earlier analysis. 🙂 Excellent post and so much background info. Working in advertising you know that 2K for a campaign buyout is ridiculously low sum. The 3M marketing person should be sent back to social media school at NMS.